Manfred Eicher has been successful with his ECM label not by constantly taking the pulse of the public and the record industry but by recording music he likes. That is an oversimplification, but not much of one. In the British newspaper The Guardian, Richard Williams has a piece about Eicher and his 40 years at the helm of the company he founded. Near the top of the article, he writes:

To its many admirers, ECM stands for a certain meditative, introspective approach to playing and listening. Its albums – about a thousand of them to date – are recorded and packaged with a deliberate refinement, once upsetting to those who concluded that Eicher had somehow squeezed the vitality from the jazz he professed to love, contaminating it by an association with his north European sensibility.
That argument seems to have been won.

Williams goes on to make the case, in part with quotes like this from Eicher:

“For me it’s very good to bring the demands of written music – phrasing, intonation, dynamics – to improvisational recording, where the approach is looser and more spontaneous. And vice versa, to bring some of the spirit of an improvised music session into a recording of written music, to get some empathy into it, so that it doesn’t become an academic-circle record. I’m trying to make an exchange, to bring one to the other.”

To read the whole thing, go here.

This was first a Rifftides post on March 24, 2006.

Thanks to Bill Reed and David Ehrenstein for calling this to our attention.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. —Igor Stravinsky

At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext of freeing yourself, to be illogical and incoherent by getting rid of structure and simply piling a lot of notes one on top of the other. —Thelonious Monk

Richie Kamuca & Lee Konitz, Live at Donte’s 1974 (Cellar Door)
It’s a hoot to hear the saxophonists channel their hero Lester Young in this recently discovered session recorded at the lamented Los Angeles club. “Lester Leaps In” begins and ends as a unison duet, complete with stop-time breaks, reproducing Young’s 1939 solo on the master take of the piece with Count Basie’s Kansas City Seven. In their own solos, Kamuca and Konitz leave no doubt about where they came from. Kamuca, the tenor player, is clearest in his fealty to Young. Konitz, on alto, is more abstract in his Prezcience, but it has always been a major element in his work. The other tunes are standards in the gig books of musicians of Kamuca’s (1930-1977) and Konitz’s (1927- ) generation—”Just Friends,” “Star Eyes,” “All The Things You Are” and Bobby Troup’s “Baby, Baby All The Time.” Solos are long and exploratory; the shortest track is 7:41. The set has the exhilaration, rough edges, chance-taking and surprises that make for satisfying live performance.
Support for the two Ks is by the solid L.A. rhythm section of pianist Dolo Coker, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Jake Hanna, all of whom solo to great effect. Vinnegar goes beyond his customary walking bass for a couple of bowed solos and a bit of unexpected wildness in his “Lester Leaps In” solo, to the evident amusement of his colleagues and the audience. Coker, an under-recognized high achiever among Bud Powell admirers, has impressive moments throughout. Hanna cooks along, fueling the swing. Toward the end of the last track, “Lester,” he finally takes a solo. What he saved up is worth the wait. The sound of this session, exhumed from reel-to-reel tapes, won’t turn Rudy Van Gelder green with envy, but it’s perfectly acceptable; you can plainly hear what everyone is doing. Unearthing and releasing it is a feather in the cap of Cellar Door’s Bill Reed. On the CD box, it says, “Limited Edition.” The 300 copies probably won’t last long because there is nothing limited about the music.

Here is the new batch of short reviews —micro-reviews, perhaps—in which the Rifftides staff acknowledges some of the CDs that have attracted our attention lately. It would be impossible to hear all of every album that shows up. Even sampling a majority of them is a challenge. Evidence: these are some, only some, of the fairly recent arrivals. Whoever said jazz is dying hasn’t talked to my FedEx, UPS and USPS deliverymen.

Pharez Whitted, Transient Journey (Owl). In his liner notes, Neil Tesser writes of trumpeter Whitted’s playing, “the spirit of Freddie Hubbard hovers nearby.” It certainly does. With his facility and fat, even sound, Whitted does hard bop a la Hubbard to a turn. His own spirit seems to materialize most clearly in his slower pieces, notably the title tune and “Sunset on the Gaza”. On flugelhorn, he is reflective in “Until Tomorrow Comes,” with its samba inflection. Whitted’s sextet includes a rhythm section of fellow Chicagoans. In the front line he has the masterly guitarist Bobby Broom and saxophonist Eddie Bayard, who is from Jamaica by way of Ohio and fits nicely into Chicago’s tough tenor tradition.
Jacám Manricks, Trigonometry (Posi-Tone). A year after his stimulating Labyrinth (see the Rifftides review here), the young Australian based in New York divests himself of the chamber orchestra and pares down to a quartet, adding guest horns on three pieces. The writing skills he displayed on the previous album are in evidence in the smaller context. Using trompe l’oreille harmonies, Manricks voices his alto saxophone, Scott Wendholt’s trumpet and Alan Ferber’s trombone to sound like a larger ensemble. “Cluster Funk,” as audacious as its title, is a prime case in point. It has a beautifully shaped Wendholt solo. As for Manricks’ own playing, it ranges from heart-on-the-sleeve lyricism in “Mood Swing” to a sort of post-Konitz earnestness in “Slippery” to bounds and leaps reminiscent of Eric Dolphy in, among other pieces, Dolphy’s “Miss Ann.” Pianist Gary Versace, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Obed Calvaire are the well-matched rhythm section.
Dino Saluzzi, El Encuentro (ECM). The venerable bandoneónista combines with the strings of the Metropole Orchestra in a suite that alternates languor and drama. Saluzzi marinates four long tracks in the sadness and passion that characterize the Argentine tango tradition, accenting them with contrasting bursts of dance-like joy from his bandoneon. His saxophonist brother Feliz and cellist Anja Lechner—each with a rich, roomy tone—also solo in this beautifully recorded concert performance in the Netherlands. Any piece called “Miserere” obligates itself to carry the emotional weight the title implies. Saluzzi’s “Miserere,” with the profundity of his bandoneon solo section, meets the obligation. Like all lasting music, Saluzzi’s work discloses new facets with each hearing.
Trisha O’Brien, Out Of A Dream (Azica). Ms. O’Brien sings in tune, swings lightly with a good time feel, understands the meaning of lyrics, chooses fine songs and doesn’t scat. She and producer Elaine Martone know how to put a band together. Lewis Nash is the drummer, Peter Washington the bassist. On piano is the sensitive accompanist Shelly Berg, who also did the arrangements. Ken Peplowski plays tenor saxophone on three tracks and has a peach of a solo on “Taking a Chance on Love.” The songs are from what reviewers are required to call The Great American Songbook (anyone with a better name is welcome to submit it). That means we get Porter, Loesser, Berlin, and Burke and Van Heusen, among others. There are latterday entries by Joni Mitchell and Alan and Marilyn Bergman. In “Everybody Loves My Baby,” Ms. O’Brien manages to be both sinuous and saucy, with Peplowski commenting on tenor sax and Washington in a walking solo right out of the Leroy Vinnegar playbook.
More reviews to come. Soon, I hope.

In a doomed attempt to stay abreast of the torrent of new releases flooding into Rifftides world headquarters, the staff is feverishly preparing a series of brief reviews; perhaps “alerts” would be a better word. It is our intention to begin posting them tomorrow or the next day. Even in the digital age, however, listening is a linear proposition, so bear with us. We can’t just inhale the music, you know (no substance gags, please).
Oh, that was a substance gag.
Watch this space.

Ending this Rifftides mini-series of videos from the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s 1964 appearance on Belgian television is—what else?—the number that became a popular hit in a best-selling album and for Desmond, its composer, an annuity that by terms of his will is still funneling large amounts of money to the Red Cross. The quartet included it in all of their concerts around the world, lest there be disappointed audiences. This version has a brief solo from Desmond, an elegiac one from Brubeck, and Morello more subdued and thoughtful than he sometimes was in this show piece. There are cast and crew credits at the end of this beautifully produced television episode.

A new three-day jazz event joins the roster of festivals that enliven Europe each summer. A musician heads this one. The Swedish pianist Jan Lundgren is organizing an early August festival in his hometown, the historic seaside village of Ystad.
In addition to Lundgren’s trio, the headliners include Benny Golson, Toots Thielemans, Richard Galliano, Jacob Fischer and Paolo Fresu. To see the program schedule and other information, go here.

Inspired by the new Bill Charlap-Renee Rosnes CD (see the review), I sent the Rifftides staff in search of other piano duos. They found this.

Rifftides reader Allen Mezquida writes:

It seems that Pekar had a greater perception about jazz than many
musicians I know. He listened with a rich open mind and a big heart.
I created this animation for him. It was finished about a week before
he died.

Allen Mezquida animates films and plays alto saxophone in Los Angeles.